The Efficacy of a Web-Based Intelligent Tutoring System Designed to Teach the Structure Strategy to Fifth-Grade Students

• In Event: Supports for Technology-Based Learning

Abstract

Web-based intelligent tutoring systems have shown great promised in their ability to provide modeling, practice tasks, assessment, and feedback to mimic a teacher in a classroom. This paper focuses on the design of a web-based intelligent tutoring system to deliver the structure strategy (ITSS) and improve reading comprehension in grades 4-8. We present findings from a large scale randomized controlled trial on the effects of ITSS on the reading comprehension of 5th grade rural and suburban students as measured by a standardized test. 127 Classrooms within 46 schools were randomly assigned to ITSS or control and data analysis used hierarchical linear modeling. ITSS classrooms in this research study statistically significantly outperformed their control counterparts in the standardized reading post-test.

Authors

• Kausalai K. Wijekumar, The Pennsylvania State University

• Bonnie J. F. Meyer, The Pennsylvania State University

• Pui-Wa Lei, The Pennsylvania State University